Stop 12. The partial preterist line

Follow the solid purple line to the right. Its writers include Kenneth Gentry, R. C. Sproul, David Chilton and Keith Mathison.

Here "this generation" in Matthew 24:34 means the people Jesus was talking to. The Olivet Discourse and most of Revelation were fulfilled by AD 70. The great tribulation is the Jewish War of AD 66 to 70. AD 70 is Christ's coming in judgment on Jerusalem. Revelation was written before that, under Nero, about AD 64 to 68.

But the story is not over in this view. Look right: the return of Christ is still future, visible and bodily. One general resurrection and one final judgment follow, and then the new creation in full.

The line splits in two over the thousand years. The postmillennial wing says the gospel age grows into a golden age before Christ returns. The amillennial wing says the thousand years is simply the present age.

Record check (judgment). The early date of Revelation rests on evidence inside the book itself. The earliest outside witness, Irenaeus, writing about AD 180, places John's vision near the end of Domitian's reign, about AD 95.

One outlier is in the data. J. Stuart Russell (1878) put the return, the resurrection and the judgment all at AD 70. Russell sits at the edge of this view.

Picture: Chart 2, the partial preterist line, B3 and B4. Layer: partial preterist.